


Indelible Memories

by orphan_account



Series: Enchanted Worlds [6]
Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-16
Updated: 2013-10-16
Packaged: 2017-12-29 14:44:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1006639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not all anniversaries are happy ones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Indelible Memories

Something was definitely _wrong_.

Ahiru could feel it. She still wasn’t completely used to trusting her own instincts, but the evidence this time at least suggested that they were onto something. She didn’t want to be right, but if she was, she at least hoped to be able to do something to help.

It had started this morning. She’d arrived so late for breakfast that she’d missed Fakir entirely, and had had to quickly stuff down some cold toast and lukewarm tea before leaving in a rush with Rue (who’d been kind enough to wait for her, as she still didn’t want her going alone) to follow him to the village. The odd thing was, they hadn’t seen Fakir at all in town despite that he’d left early, or at least that was what he had told Rue. She might have been able to shrug that off as simply poor timing except for the fact that they had not once seen Pike or Lilie hanging around outside any of the shops they knew he frequented. Not once. And when she’d run home for lunch because of her nagging feeling that something wasn’t right, instead of eating with Rue in some restaurant, he hadn’t been there either. Uzura claimed to have seen him walking through the gardens, but hadn’t been able to chase after him because her nanny had ushered her back inside. She’d offered to help look for him, but as it was her nap time, Ahiru had had to turn her down. Just as well; she had the sense that this was better done by herself.

He wasn’t in the flower gardens, or at the duck pond, or the little bridge she’d walked to with him on Halloween. There was only one place left to look that she could think of, and using her magic to try and pinpoint his location – a spell she’d really only practiced a few times – seemed to confirm he was there.

Sure enough, as she approached the little stone gazebo, she could see that someone was in there, and as she drew closer it became obvious that it was Fakir. His head was lowered, so she couldn’t see his face at first, but he looked up at her as she stepped into the gazebo, and his name died on her lips as she saw the tears on his cheeks.

“Oh… Ahiru… I…” His voice was hoarse, and he gave a shaky, mirthless little laugh. “You’ve caught me at a bad time…”

“Fakir…” The tender concern in her voice as she said his name was almost too much for him to bear. “Do you – do you want to talk about it? Or – or do you want me to just go?”

“I – no – I mean –” Truth be told, he wasn’t at all sure what he wanted. It was a little embarrassing to have her see him like this, and he had wanted to be alone when he came out here, but now that she was here, now that he was finally seeing her today, there was a part of him that desperately wanted her to stay.

And she did. To his surprise, Ahiru quietly walked across the little gazebo and sat down next to him. That was startling enough, but then she leaned her head against his shoulder and took his hand in one of hers, sliding her fingers between his. He drew his breath in sharply at that, but didn’t try to pull away, and she evidently either didn’t hear or mistook the reason for it, and didn’t let go, but just sat there with him like that and didn’t say a word.

“… It’s the anniversary,” Fakir said quietly, after a few minutes of silence.

“Of what?”

“… Of the fire.”

“… Oh.” Ahiru bit her lip and gave his hand a little squeeze. She wasn’t sure what to say to that, and if he didn’t want to talk any more about it, if he wanted to leave it at that, she felt that that was his right and the last thing she wanted to do was pry and make him uncomfortable on top of being obviously miserable. “I – I’m sorry…”

“I don’t usually…” He stopped for a moment as he tried to figure out what to say. “Most years, it’s… not this bad, but this time…” He shook his head. “I’m sorry you had to see this.”

“Why?” Ahiru turned her head to peer at his face. “That’s a silly thing to say. I don’t – I mean – okay, so, so I don’t like that you’re unhappy because – because I don’t want you to be sad because – I mean…” She made a little noise of frustration. “I’m not saying it right, but I want you to understand that it’s okay for you to be sad about this and cry about it because those are your own feelings and it’s better if you let them out cause you’ll only feel worse later if you don’t and you shouldn’t be ashamed of them or of me seeing cause I’m not going to make fun of you or anything. But I also want you to feel better cause I don’t like seeing you be sad, but that’s for your own sake and not because I want you to hide anything or pretend to feel all better cause you think it bothers me or something.” She swung her feet back and forth impatiently, narrowly missing kicking him. “Am – am I making any sense at all? I feel like I’m not and I’m only confusing you and making you feel worse and I don’t want to make you feel worse right now or ever, and…” Her shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry. I’ll shut up now.”

“… It’s fine.” Fakir squeezed her hand. “I understand what you’re trying to say.”

“Oh. Okay. Good.” Ahiru leaned her head against his shoulder again and let out a little sigh. She’d never been particularly good at articulating her thoughts and feelings, and she still wasn’t sure that her rambling just now had made any sense at all, but at least Fakir seemed to understand the sentiments she’d been trying to get across. That was enough.

Fakir was quiet for a couple of minutes as he weighed what to say next. He’d never willingly told anyone else everything that he remembered about that day; Rue knew the circumstances but not all the details, and of course he’d had to tell Chrestomanci when she questioned him, but he’d never _chosen_ to confide in someone about it, instead keeping it all bottled up inside. But now, scary as it still was to even contemplate talking about it, he found he wanted to trust Ahiru with the things that had haunted him all these years. He felt that he _could_ trust her. He drew a deep breath before beginning.

“I think I told you once that I don’t remember why I cast the spell to summon fire.” He heard her make her little quack-like noise of surprise; any other day, he would have smiled at how cute it was, at how cute _she_ was, but he just couldn’t right now. “It was too advanced a spell for me to be able to control at that age; it got out of hand before I knew it. It happened so fast that I barely remember anything between casting the spell and running to get help. And then… well… I think I tried to put it out myself, to make it stop, but enchanter’s magic is all about using your thoughts to make things happen, and I… was too terrified of what was happening to think about it right and I just ended up making things worse.”

“Oh… oh no… oh Fakir…” Ahiru’s fingers tightened around his, almost involuntarily.

“I didn’t know what to do, and anything I did seemed to go wrong. I…” Fakir stopped. The memories were much too vivid again, as they had been earlier, perhaps even more so. He could feel the panic rising up within him, as though he was back in that burning house, screaming for his parents and desperate to make it all stop, to take back everything he’d done that had led to this waking nightmare. It was making him feel sick, and he needed to find a way to calm down.

As he searched for some way to do that, his gaze fell on their entwined hands. He found himself noticing, as if for the first time, just how small Ahiru’s hand was, how tiny and delicate the fingers laced between his were. She still had on the nail polish that Rue had applied to go with her ballerina costume on Halloween, but by now there were little chips here and there in it. Ahiru was so clumsy and active that that didn’t surprise him; he could even imagine the distress she must’ve felt when she noticed the first one, and how she must’ve apologized to Rue for “ruining” the hard work she’d done. Rue, of course, would’ve assured her it was okay and bound to happen eventually, and he was equally sure that despite the chips Ahiru wouldn’t have the heart to take the polish off until she absolutely had to, because of the memories she associated with it. She was sentimental like that, he’d noticed.

Her hand was soft, too, and pleasantly warm. There was something very comforting about holding her hand, and as he continued to stare down at it, focusing his mind on all the little details he could see, he felt himself start to relax, his heart rate and breathing returning to normal and the tight coil of nausea in his stomach uncurling itself and slowly, slowly fading away. He became aware again of the weight of her head against his shoulder where she was leaning against him, and that too brought him some measure of peace, enough that he felt ready to continue.

“I didn’t want to run out without them. But I didn’t know where they were, so… I searched. I ran all over, or at least, where I could, and…” Fakir swallowed. “That’s… where my memories blank out, until I woke up in the hospital.”

“The hospital?” Ahiru lifted her head up and peered at him again. “You… you got hurt?” Her stomach twisted painfully at the idea.

“… Yeah.” He nodded. “It… was a while before I was recovered enough to move in here.” He sighed. “When I woke up, Chrestomanci and Charon were there. Back then, he was still living next door. He had just gotten hired to work here, but hadn’t finished moving in yet. He summoned Chrestomanci when he saw the fire and recognized it as being of magical origin, and she saved me. It was too late for my parents, but she got me out.”

“I’m glad she did,” Ahiru whispered. She couldn’t imagine not knowing Fakir. It was too horrible a thought. She stared down at their joined hands and felt tears pricking at her eyes and a painful lump forming in her throat. It wasn’t fair that he’d lost so much, suffered so much; her heart ached for him just thinking about it. It wasn’t any surprise to her that after that he’d be so guarded around others, that his smiles – beautiful though they were – would be so rare. Knowing what she did about him made her cherish all the more every precious one he’d ever shown her.

“… I’ve heard it rumored that she lost one of her lives in the process.” He heard Ahiru quack again, and saw her muffle it by clapping her other hand over her mouth. “I don’t know if it’s true or not, though. It’s just what I’ve heard people say, and I don’t know the details of how it supposedly happened. I’ve never asked her.”

He couldn’t bear to. It was shameful enough that he’d wound up causing his parents to lose their lives – to have the loss of one of Chrestomanci’s lives be his fault too, that she should have died saving him after what he’d done, that made it even worse. To have that on his conscience on top of his parents’ deaths was just too much. He was too scared to ask her, and that made him feel even more ashamed of himself. How pathetic he was.

As if sensing the direction his thoughts had gone in, Ahiru squeezed his hand again. “Fakir, it’s – it’s okay if you’re scared to ask her that. I would be too if it was me. I mean – it’s so awkward and – and – how do you even say that, and if it’s true what do you do, and if it’s not, well… I don’t know, I don’t know what I’m saying really but I do think it’s fine if you’d rather not know and it doesn’t make you a bad person or anything. I’m sure she knows you’re grateful either way, and it’s okay to be scared of stuff and it doesn’t make you weak to just avoid things that really bother you if you’re just gonna get really upset by it. That doesn’t do you any good. I’m probably not making sense, though.”

“No, you are.” He shook his head. “I understand what you…” He trailed off as he felt something wet fall onto his arm. It was a sunny day, and the roof of the gazebo was structurally sound, so it couldn’t have been rain. “Are you – are you crying?”

“I –! Um, um…” Ahiru turned her head away, attempting to hide her damp face even as Fakir tried to look at her. “I – I – uh…”

Fakir shook his head again. “I told you before, you don’t need to cry for me,” he said quietly. It bothered him to see her like this. It was bad enough in general when something upset her, but to be the cause of it was even worse, especially when he felt so undeserving of her sympathy, much less her tears.

“Y-you weren’t supposed to notice!” Ahiru wailed, startling him with her outburst. “Cause – cause if you notice and we talk about it, then it becomes about me and me being sad and it’s not _supposed_ to be about me, this is about you, and if it becomes about me that’s not fair to you, that’s not _right_ , so I was trying to hide it but you noticed anyway and… and… I’m sorry!” She pressed the back of her free hand against her mouth, attempting to hold back the fresh tears that were filling her eyes. They were tears of guilt, not sadness, but did it really matter in the end? Oh, she was stupid, she was so _stupid_ , she’d gone and done anyway what she hadn’t wanted to do and it was awful now. “I’m so sorry!”

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her she was ridiculous, but not in the way he said it when Rue was teasing him – rather, he meant that she was ridiculously sweet and kind and compassionate, to a degree he’d never encountered in another person before. He wanted to tell her how much it meant to him to be able to trust her with this, to have known even before he’d spoken that she would still accept him and care about him no matter what, and how grateful he was for her earnest insistence that it didn’t make him a bad person in her eyes and the way she tried so hard to make him feel better. There was so much he wanted to say to her, but as usual, the words couldn’t seem to find their way out.

So instead of saying all that he really wanted to say, he swallowed back the unsaid words and spoke in a more neutral tone. “Why don’t we talk about something else entirely, then?”

Ahiru turned to look up at him, her eyes still wet. “Will – will that make you feel better?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I think so.”

“O-okay, then… then…” Ahiru sniffled. “So, um… um… we should… instead of… ah… um…” She racked her brain, trying desperately to think of some new topic to steer the conversation onto, but she couldn’t come up with anything and grew progressively more frustrated the harder she thought and the more time that passed. “Ahhhh! I’m so stupid, I can’t think of anything! I’m so stupid!”

“No, you’re not. Calm down,” Fakir said, his tone firm but gentle. “It’s all right. I can’t think of anything either. It’s only natural to struggle with something like that when you’re put on the spot.”

Ahiru sniffled again. “R-really?”

“Yes, really.” He glanced down and saw that she was rubbing his hand with her little thumb. She didn’t seem to know that she was doing it, though. It made him almost want to smile. He’d noticed before that she was so energetic that she was always in motion somehow when she was awake, even in small ways like this. It was adorable. “Like I said, I can’t think of anything either.”

Ahiru brightened a little at that. “Then – then we really are more alike than I used to think! I mean, when I first moved in here I thought we were really really different, and we are different in lots of ways but we also have lots of stuff in common and that surprised me at first but not really anymore. I’m so glad we got to know each other and that we’re friends now!”

“… Yeah.” Fakir turned his head away so she wouldn’t see him blushing. “I – I am too.” If he was honest with himself, he still didn’t completely understand why she wanted to be friends with him. He was selfishly glad she did, though – he genuinely enjoyed being around her, and her kindness and unconditional acceptance of him made him feel happier than he had in a long, long time. Even if he didn’t really get it, she clearly saw things in him that she valued, and just knowing that was enough.

“I’m glad! I’m glad that you’re glad too, I mean!” Happiness was bubbling over in her heart at hearing him admit that; it had made her day, possibly her week. “Cause – cause I have so much fun doing things like going to the library together, or – or exploring stuff around the castle… remember when we found this place? That day with Uzura?”

“Yeah, I remember that.” He could still see the look of awe on Ahiru’s face in his mind when he thought about it, the way her eyes had widened and her jaw had dropped when they’d emerged from the trees to see it. She’d been so entranced by it that her enthusiasm had been infectious. Not that he’d actually shown it, of course.

“That was so fun!” Her eyes shone as she recalled it. “I still wonder what it’s for, and why nobody’s used it in such a long time. Do you think it’s a fairy gathering place, like something out of that story we read on Halloween?”

His face heated up a little as he remembered that story. “I – you should be careful about saying such things out loud, especially out here.” He shook his head. “Fairies aren’t just figures in children’s stories or decorations on cards – they’re real and they could be listening, and they’re not always friendly.”

“Really?” Ahiru’s eyes went as wide as they had when they’d first discovered the gazebo. “I – I never knew that! I always heard people talk about them as if they were real and put stuff out for some of them sometimes and say certain things but I always thought it was just superstition, like that stuff about black cats or mirrors, you know, where it’s not really true but people have believed it in so long that it seems scary not to be careful so you kind of do it anyway.”

“They’re very real. And…” Fakir paused as he remembered something. “They actually have something in common with you, if the old tales are true: they despise iron. It weakens them.”

“They do? It does?” Ahiru stared up at him in shock. “Um, um… do you think… do you think I’m part fairy, then? Cause I don’t know anything about my father, so if it’s possible maybe I am and that’s why that’s my weakness, it would make sense, wouldn’t it?”

His first thought was that she was certainly tiny and beautiful like the popular illustrations of fairies, and only needed a pair of wings to pass for one, but he pushed that thought aside before speaking. “I don’t know. I’ve never heard of it happening, but I suppose it might be possible. You never know. That said, it’s probably just a coincidence.”

“Oh.” Ahiru didn’t know whether she was disappointed or not. “Well, it was just a thought, anyway…” She sighed. “I wish I knew more about my parents…”

“What _do_ you know about them?” Fakir asked. He wasn’t surprised that her uncle would’ve withheld information on her parents from her, and it was saying something that that looked to have been the _least_ of his crimes.

“Just that my mother was a famous ballerina nicknamed Princess Tutu and that I kinda look like her.” She sighed again. “I only have a few things from her… I had the pendant, but that’s in Chrestomanci’s safe now, and I have a picture of her as a ballerina, and a picture of her holding me after I was born, just before she…” She gulped back the tears that threatened to fill her eyes and tried to smile. “I – I’ll have to show you the pictures sometime. She – she had the same hair as me, only shorter, and – and in the picture of me as a baby I already had this.” She pointed to her cowlick. “Only it was really little cause I was just a baby. A-and I also have a program from when she was in Swan Lake, and a pair of her pointe shoes. But that’s it.” Her shoulders slumped. “I don’t really know what she was like, or about anything she did as a ballerina, or who my father was, or… or anything.”

That explained why she’d been so adamant about him not destroying that picture of him and Rue in their Halloween costumes. Fakir abruptly felt all embarrassment about that photo drain out of him. He still thought he looked ridiculous in it, but their conversation was putting it all in perspective – he had precious little left from his childhood because of the fire, and she had even less than that, she didn’t even have memories of her parents because they’d been dead before she could have created any memories. Anything either of them still had was meant to be carefully taken of and cherished, not destroyed, no matter how mortifying or sad.

“Have you tried looking for information on them?” Fakir asked her. Ahiru nodded.

“Y-yeah, I tried looking up books on ballet in the castle library, but they were all really general and pretty old anyway, too old to have anything on her, and the bookstore doesn’t have anything either on her and I don’t have any idea who my father could’ve been, so there’s no way to look for stuff on him.” She let out another sigh. “I guess I’ll never know anything…”

“You might someday. Don’t give up hope. Just keep looking.” A thought struck him as he said that. “That… reminds me. Did you come out here by accident, or…”

“I was looking for you,” Ahiru confirmed with a nod. “I hadn’t seen you all day and I was really worried and I had a bad feeling that something was wrong so I searched around a bit and I tried that spell to find you and it said you were here but I wasn’t sure cause I’ve only used it a couple times but I came here and I found you.” She frowned. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have intruded, you probably wanted to be alone.”

“It’s fine. I feel better now, so don’t worry about it.” He shook his head. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” It was almost funny: only she could find a way to apologize for having been a caring, concerned friend. Maybe if he thought about that little quirk of hers he could avoid focusing on how it felt to hear that she had been so worried about him that she’d come looking for him.

“You do?” Ahiru brightened up again. “Oh, okay, that’s really good! I’m so glad to hear that! Um, did you eat lunch, though? Cause you weren’t in there when I came home to eat and I know you weren’t in the village, so you must be really hungry if you haven’t eaten anything.”

“A little,” Fakir shrugged. It was true that he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast – and he’d barely touched that – but until now he hadn’t actually felt hungry. His stomach felt empty, but until this moment it hadn’t occurred to him to want to eat.

“Then we should go get you something! Come on!” She stood up, and tugged on the hand she was still holding. “I bet there’s stuff in the kitchen that they’ll let you have and if you want we can go upstairs or we can come back outside and I’ll sit with you if you want or you can just be by yourself or… well, let’s just go get you something!”

Looking up at her, Fakir finally gave in – for the first time that day, he smiled. “All right.” He stood up, and missed entirely the effect his expression had on Ahiru. “Let’s go, then.”

“Okay!” Ahiru finally let go of his hand, something that both of them were sorry to have happen. She started off across the gazebo, but then paused after a few steps and turned around, a more serious look on her face. “Um, Fakir? I – I just want to say, um… I know you probably don’t want me to tell anybody about this or what we talked about, so – so I promise not to say anything to anybody. I’ll keep it a secret, I promise! Just between us!”

“I know you will.” Fakir smiled at her again. “Thank you.”

“Y-you’re welcome!” He’d smiled at her _twice_ in the last two minutes – she felt breathless and a little dizzy and her heart was racing. She only hoped he didn’t notice how flustered he made her when he did that. “C-come on, I could use a – a snack or something too!”

“Idiot,” he gently chided her with a soft laugh as he followed her out of the gazebo and into the trees. “It’s not going anywhere.”

“I – I know that!”

They walked back to the castle, entering by the back door as usual; Fakir was relieved to see that no one was waiting for them. He was feeling better than he had been, but he still didn’t feel quite ready to really deal with anyone besides Ahiru. Especially not Uzura, not right now. He followed Ahiru to the castle kitchen, hoping it would be quiet in there.

He was in luck: they’d come at the right time, during the lull in activity between lunch and dinner preparations. Only the head chef, Ebine, was in there now.

“Hi, Ebine!” Ahiru said chirpily. “Is there any food we can have? Fakir, um, missed lunch cause he was in the village and he forgot to buy anything there and I’m kinda still hungry too so if you have anything we could maybe take somewhere and eat we’d be really grateful!”

It wasn’t the best lie – she really wasn’t good at them at all – but he appreciated her effort nonetheless. And anyway Ebine didn’t seem to realize it as she happily bustled over.

“Oh! Miss Ahiru! And Mr. Fakir!” He winced at being called that – Mr. Katz did it too and it just didn’t sound right to him at all. “Food? Oh yes! Of course! What would you like? And where are you going to eat it? If you’re going outside I can prepare a little basket for you with everything you need but first I’ll have to take the spells off so they don’t tell you they belong to the castle! If you’re just going upstairs I won’t need to do that though, so which will it be?”

Ahiru turned to him with a faintly dazed expression that he felt must have matched his own. It was amazing how this woman could have that effect even on Ahiru, with her tendency towards run-on sentences and babbling. In Ahiru it was cute, though; with Ebine, it was a little exhausting. “Um, what do you think, Fakir? Where do you want to go eat?”

“Hmmm…” He considered it. “Outside, I think.” They were more likely to have privacy for longer there, until he felt up to dealing with other people.

“Outside it is, then!” Ebine clapped her hands together. “It’ll just be one moment, wait there!”

They watched as she zoomed around the kitchen at high-speed, moving a bit faster than they seemed able to see, tossing all sorts of things into a large basket that finally she dashed over to present to them. “Here you go, my dears! Enjoy, but try not to fill up, as there’s a lovely dinner planned too and you’re having your lunch late!”

“Thank you!” Ahiru beamed at her. “We’ll – we’ll try not to!” She reached for the basket, but was stopped by Fakir’s hand on her shoulder.

“Let me.” He took the basket with his other hand, and sure enough, it was heavier than he suspected Ahiru could carry. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Okay!” Ahiru followed him as he carried the basket back out of the kitchen and towards the door to the outside. “Um, so, where outside do you want to eat? It might be nice in the flower gardens but I think the gardeners might get mad if we did that, um, maybe the duck pond, then?”

“… Yeah.” It was more private, and also more distant, so if anyone came looking for them they’d at least have some time before they were found.

They walked all the way back out to the duck pond, with Ahiru periodically insisting on helping to carry the basket since she could tell it was heavy. Fakir finally gave in a short ways into the orchard, and she happily took hold of it and carried it with him until they arrived at their destination.

“She even included a blanket to spread out, how nice!” Ahiru shook it out, only to have the wind blow it back over her head. Fakir rushed to her side and helped her free herself from it, taking the other end afterwards and assisting her in carefully laying it down on the grass. They weighed it down first with the basket and then by sitting down together to look at what Ebine had packed for them.

The first thing they noticed was the source of the weight: a carefully sealed pitcher of lemonade, two glasses, and two exceptionally thick plates, along with some silverware. Fakir unpacked those while Ahiru peered at the food inside. There were a few cheese sandwiches, some pickles, some pears and apples, and some more of the cranberry muffins they’d had at breakfast. They served themselves the food they each wanted, and ate quietly for a while without talking.

“Have you ever seen one?” Ahiru asked as she swallowed a bite of a muffin. They were both nearly finished with their little meal, and this had evidently been on her mind for at least some portion of it.

Fakir set down his glass. “One what?”

“A fairy, of course!” Ahiru gently elbowed him. “You said they’re real and I was thinking about it and I was curious if you’d ever seen one yourself. I don’t think I ever have, unless I did and I don’t know it, which I guess is possible too…”

“Hmmm…” Fakir thought about it. “I… yeah. I think I did, once.” He looked over at her. “Now, you realize they don’t look like the common illustrations you see in books and on the things you see in stores, right? There’s more diversity to them than that, and many can change their shapes if they wish.”

“Ooh, really? That’s neat!” Ahiru clasped her hands together in excitement. “Tell me about the one you saw! When did it happen?”

“It was some years back, on a chilly Halloween night.” Fakir took a sip of his lemonade before continuing. “It was much like it was this year, with a thick fog covering the castle grounds. And every once in a while, the clouds would part to reveal the golden full moon hanging high in the sky.”

He was, Ahiru realized as she listened, telling the story as though it was one written down in a book. He hadn’t done that with the sad one earlier, but then, this one was much more comfortable for him to tell. No wonder he was so good at reading stories aloud to Uzura – he seemed to have a natural gift for it. She found herself leaning closer, utterly entranced by him.

“When I saw the fog outside the window that night, so dense in the dark woods, I wanted to take a walk in it. I was old and experienced enough to know better, but I still was fascinated by such things. As a child I’d always thought that if you wandered far enough into the fog, you could pass into some other world, or even another time.”

“Oh, me too!” As enchanted by his storytelling as she was, Ahiru still couldn’t help but interrupt. “I’d always try to find it, but I never could, and I’d always be disappointed. Did you do that too?”

“Yeah.” Fakir gave her a small, patient smile before continuing. “I was warned against it, but I couldn’t help myself and ran out into the night. We were in the private family dining room, so the forest was not far off. Rue followed me, and so did Chrestomanci, but as I had gotten a head start, I wasn’t aware of that until later. Or perhaps I really did pass into some other world for a time as I wandered through the misty woods.”

There was something different about Fakir when he was telling a story; Ahiru couldn’t pinpoint what, but there was a definite change in him, in his overall manner and even his voice – which she already liked a lot to begin with – and it had her completely spellbound.

“I didn’t get far, though, before I had the encounter I mentioned. Out of the white mist came a sleek horse as black as the night sky behind the clouds, with a flowing mane and glowing golden eyes. So startled was I that I froze in place at its approach, and it stopped just before me. I was afraid at first, but I soon overcame that as it seemed to mean me no harm.” Fakir stopped to take another drink, and then went on. “I stroked its mane, and it nuzzled my hand, and it seemed to be inviting me to take a ride on its back. I was on the verge of climbing astride it when voices rang out from behind me, and I turned to see their source.”

Ahiru almost asked a question about that, but this time she couldn’t bear to interrupt. She just wanted to go on listening to him for a long, long time.

“As soon as I turned my head to see Rue and Chrestomanci emerging from the fog, it was as if a spell had been broken; I realized later that the creature’s eyes must have been hypnotizing me somehow. Rue reached my side first, and pulled on my arm to get me away, while Chrestomanci moved towards the thing and uttered words in a language I didn’t know. To my surprise, it answered her, and after some arguing – at least, that’s what I believe they were doing – it backed off into the trees, vanishing into the misty darkness. The last I saw of it were its eyes, glowing balefully at us in the gloom.”

Ahiru shuddered. “How scary,” she whispered to herself, in a voice so low she hoped he would not take it as an interruption.

“I was scolded for my rash actions, but I was less interested in that than I was in what manner of being I had just come in contact with. Chrestomanci explained to the both of us that I had met the Pooka, a shapeshifter who, although it did not have true malicious intent, still might have caused me harm through its desire for mischief. Had I climbed onto it, it would have taken me for a wild ride before unceremoniously depositing me far from home. This didn’t sound like something I would have enjoyed, so I was grateful to Chrestomanci for driving it off. I later looked into it, and learned that they can actually be beneficial sometimes, but I’m still glad that I didn’t get taken for a ride that night.” He drained the last of his lemonade. “To date, that’s been my only real fairy encounter.”

“Wow…” Ahiru stared at him with a starry-eyed look on her face. “That was… that was like hearing you read a story out of a book, but even better! You’re really, really good at telling stories, Fakir!”

“Oh. Ah…” Fakir shifted and looked away, his face turning a little pink. “I… thanks…”

Ahiru frowned slightly. She was confused at the sudden shyness that had come over him, but didn’t feel like pushing the matter. “You’re welcome! I – I really enjoyed it! It sounded like it was kinda scary, but at least nothing bad happened and you didn’t get hurt. Do you think it still lives around here?”

“I’m sure it does. I haven’t seen it since, but then, I haven’t gone looking.” Fakir shrugged. “There have been other times where I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye, or heard something strange, but nothing like that night. That’s why I told you to be careful earlier: you never know if or when they’re around.”

“Yeah, I’ll definitely be careful, especially after hearing that story!” Ahiru nodded. “Thank you for telling me the story, it was really fun to listen to!”

“It – it’s no big deal.” He avoided looking at her until his face felt less uncomfortably warm, and then he couldn’t help but stare at her a little as she sat looking happily out at the empty pond. His eyes softened as he gazed at her, and something dangerously close to a smile stole over his face for a brief moment. The day had started out so miserably, but having her around had done so much to improve it. If he said he felt completely better, that would be a lie, but she nevertheless had been a great comfort to him and his mood had lifted considerably after spending time with her. He didn’t want to imagine what it’d be like if she wasn’t here, if she hadn’t come to the castle and become a part of his life.

Ahiru thought she felt his eyes on her, and turned to see, but Fakir had already looked away and was packing some things back into the basket. “You want to go back in now?” she asked.

Fakir paused to think about it. “Not just yet,” he said after a minute, shaking his head. “Can we stay out here a little while longer?”

Ahiru nodded. “Of course! As long as you want!”

They ended up staying there for the better part of another hour, until Fakir finally felt like he could maybe stand to be around other people. Ahiru helped him clean up from their little picnic, and they sent the basket back to the kitchens via magic rather than lug it all the way back themselves. They walked largely in silence, each one lost in thought about one another and the things they’d discussed that day.

They’d both lost a lot before coming here. But they’d also gained so much by living in the castle, like each other, and a makeshift little family. They’d be all right, in the end, because for every painful memory they carried around with themselves they were also making happy new ones every single day. They wouldn’t be able to erase the bad ones, but they could make them easier to live with, and that was more than enough.


End file.
